primary research

After I had completed my secondary research and gained an idea of what food photography is all about, I was then asked to go out into Bradford and take a few photographs of my own. In order to do this I went into some cafés in order to take photographs of the food which was available within these facilities. As the photographs were taken within the café environment, the location of the photographs is relevant to the subject and it means that the photographs are not disjointed with a somewhat random and irrelevant surrounding. Taking these photographs allowed me to get a feel for what food photography was about for myself. Taking my own photographs of food meant I was able to see first hand what settings, lighting arrangements and so on worked best for this type of photography. Here are the photographs which I took as part of of me primary research.

Here is a closer look at some of my favourite photographs from this shoot.

This is one of the first photographs I took as part of the photoshoot which I carried out for my research. The first place which I visited to gain material for my research was Starbucks. While in Starbucks I purchased a muffin and a drink in a take out cup in order to photograph. This photograph shows the muffin and the drink stood next to each other, side by side. This photograph was taken within the coffee shop itself which can be seen by the warm lighting and the wall which has been dropped out of focus in the background of the photograph. In order to achieve this photograph, I used a shallow depth of field to make sure that the muffin and the cup were both in focus while the background dropped out of focus. I wanted this to be the case as I wanted the main focus to be on the muffin and the cup. The lighting within this photograph is provided by a mixture of the artificial lighting which was present within Starbucks and natural lighting which was being let in through the near by window. The natural lighting let in by the window gives the photograph a nice balanced look while the artificial lighting gives off a slight yellow cast which I feel works well for the photograph as it gives the image a warm and comforting feel which I feel compliments the photograph. As I wanted the photograph to look warm and comforting, when editing this photograph, I simply altered the levels in order to enhance the warm tones within this photograph while still keeping it true to real life. 

This is another photograph I took within Starbucks as part of my research. This is another photograph of the same muffin as previously seen however this time I chose to photograph the muffin on its own without being accompanied by the cup. This photograph was taken immediately after the photograph previously shown meaning that the location and lighting situation remains the same as before. In this photograph, the natural lighting being let in from the window is more obvious as the right side of thie muffin is a little brighter than the left side as the window was on the right of me as I was taking this photograph. I feel that if the light being cast on the muffin was more even and not brighter on one side than the other, then this photograph would look a lot better than it does now. For this photograph, I used a shallow depth of field meaning that only the muffin itself is in focus while the rest of the shot drops out of focus. I did this to emphasize the fact that the muffin is the main focus point of the photograph and I did not want any other aspects of the photograph to cause a distraction to the viewer. When taking this photograph I wanted the muffin to be the most gripping part of the photograph and with the use of a shallow depth of field, I feel that I achieved this

This is another photograph which I took within Starbucks as part of my research. This is another photograph of the same muffin which can be seen in previous photographs. This time I chose to only photograph half of the muffin and take advantage of the rule of thirds. I intended for the subject of this photograph to be contained within the left hand third of this photograph which I think I achieved reasonably well as the subject is where I want it to be and it is lit well and in focus, however, the white section of the photograph on the right is a little distracting and it draws the eye away from the muffin which I intended to be the main subject matter. Had this whit section not have been there, I think that this would have been one of my favourite photographs from this research shoot as I love the way muffin is well lit by the window light and the background which is out of focus is dark. I feel that this makes the muffin stand out more than in the other photographs. When editing this photograph, all I did was edit the levels slightly in order to make the colours within the muffin slightly more vibrant and eye catching than before. I did not think that this photograph needed any further editing. 

This is another photograph which I took as part of my research. After taking photographs in Starbucks, I went for lunch in Wetherspoons and decided to take some photographs of my lunch. As I had ordered nachos I thought that this would make for some nice photographs as there were some nice bright colours present with the green of the jalapenos and guacamole and the red of the salsa. When I saw these vibrant colours I thought that these would make for an interesting photograph so I decided to take a close up shot of the topping of the nachos. This photograph was taken inside Weatherspoons although the location of this photograph is not clear just by looking at the image itself and the lighting for this photograph was provided by natural lighting let in by skylights in the roof. This is made evident by the balanced, true to real life colour of the photograph and the reflection of the light present over the entirety of the plate of food. As this was a close up shot of one specific area of the food I wanted to get as much of it in focus as possible and I think I have achieved this within this photograph. Once I had taken this photograph I put it into Photoshop and edited the levels slightly in order to make the green and red colours slightly more vibrant and make the overall image a little more eye catching.

This is another photograph which I took during my research. This is another photograph of the same plate of nachos as seen before. This time, instead of photographing a lot of the nacho topping, I chose to focus in on one of the jalapeno slices. As this photograph was taken at the same time as the previous one, it means that the lighting and the location remain the same as before. With this photograph I wanted the jalapeno slice to be the main focus this means I used a large aperture in order to create a shallow depth of field in order to make sure the jalapeno was the only part of the photograph while the rest of the image dropped out of focus. I feel that this gives the photograph a nice effect as it means that the viewers eye is drawn to just the jalapeno and is not distracted by other aspects of the photograph. Once I had taken this photograph I edited it in Photoshop by slightly altering the levels in order to make the colours within the image a little more vibrant. Overall I am very happy with the way this photograph turned out.

This is another photograph which I took as part of my research. This is a photograph of a flapjack slice which was purchased in the café located above the Waterstones book store. This photograph simply shows the flapjack placed on a plate next to a fork. When taking this photograph, I think I used the flash on my camera. This would explain the contrast between the brightness of the white plate and the darkness of the background as the light from the flash would have reflected off of the white plate. I like the effect this has had on the photograph as it makes the subject isolated making it the only thing within the photograph meaning the viewers attention cannot be diverted to other aspects of the image. When taking this photograph I used a shallow depth of field and focused on the corner of the flapjack which is closest to the camera. I did this because I wanted to capture the detail of the oats within the flapjack towards the front of it with the rest of it disappearing put of focus. I think this has a nice effect on the photograph and I am happy with the way It looks. When editing this photograph within Photoshop, I only altered the levels slightly as with each of the other photographs from this shoot. 

This is another photograph taken within the café above the Waterstones bookstore in Bradford. This is a photograph of the salt pots found on the tables within the café. When taking this photograph, I wanted the location of the photograph to be apparent but not overriding so in order to achieve this I decided to take the photograph in such a way that the background could be seen beyond the focus point of the image. In order to achieve my desired effect I used a shallow depth of field to make the salt pots in the foreground of the image sharply in focus while the background dropped out of focus. This means that the first thing you see is the salt pots which were intended to be the main focus point of the photograph however if you continue to look at this photograph and look beyond the salt pots, although out of focus, you can make out that this photograph was taken within a café environment which was the effect I was going for. When shooting this photograph, I decided to shoot in portrait rather than landscape like with the rest of my images as the salt pots were taller than they were wide and I didn’t want excess space at the edges of my photograph. In addition to this, by taking this photograph in portrait it allowed me to include the café in the background of the photograph. This photograph was lit mainly by natural light being let in by the window towards the left of the photograph. This can be seen as the light is being reflected off of the chromed lids of the salt pots. Again, like with the other photographs, I put this image into Photoshop and altered the levels slightly to make the image a little more eye catching